My psychiatrist only prescribes paxil for my depression. He does not think I am having delusions and would never prescribe a drug for a condition I did not have. He has supported me through all of this all the way to the Health Department. He was the first doctor to run any tests on me and found that I was anemic. This psychiatrist encouraged me to get tested for Lyme since I had served in the military and stationed in New London Ct. You know where that is John? Old Lyme County sound familiar to ya? Yep, the epicenter! He is brilliant because sure enough the Lyme was detected and so was babesiosis. Babesiosis is a parasite John. Granted it is in the red blood cells and cannot

Sounds like you found a gem of a doctor. My derm wanted to know if I was taking any
anti-depressant since one side affect can be
a rash/skin erruptions.

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these".

THE OVERLOOKED RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND
MENTAL SYMPTOMS
By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
September 13, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

Psychiatric disease should be diagnosed only after careful exclusion of medical conditions that could produce the patients symptoms. Unfortunately very few mental health care providers are aware of the multitude of circumstances in which mental symptoms are precipitated by an infectious illness. A valuable clue that a mental problem may be infectious rather than psychiatric is sudden onset in a previously stable individual.

Dr. Paul Fink, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, has acknowledged that every psychiatric disorder in the Psychiatric Diagnostic Symptoms Manual IV (DSM-!V) can be caused by Lyme Disease. This proves that every known psychiatric disorder can be caused by an infection (Borrelia burgdorfi Bb spirochete). So far all cases of Alzheimer's disease tested for the Borrelia burgdorfi Bb spirochete, which causes Lyme Disease, have tested positive.

Conventional medical practice in the United States largely ignores the possibility of parasitic disease. There are several reasons for this:

When a disease is never diagnosed it is easy to assume that it does not exist. Parasites are often overlooked in the U.S.
There is a shortage of technicians who are skilled in identifying parasitic organisms.
Spending one's day studying microscopic sample of stool specimens probably does not attract very many laboratory personnel.
There is a common misconception that parasitic problems are primarily found in tropical countries and are rare in countries like the U.S.A.
To illustrate how many health care practitioners can be fooled by parasitic disease consider the case of Carolyn Razor. Upbeat, healthy, energetic, psychologist Carolyn Raser returned from a vacation in Bhutun with severe depression, exhaustion, and such swelling in her joints she was unable to open a hotel room door. Her third M.D. diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and started multiple drugs. Her depression, lethargy and exhaustion persisted after 100 treatments by assorted acupuncturists, chiropractors, and rehabilitation specialists. A call to the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness led to the discovery of three protozoan parasites and a compromised secretory IGA system. Three weeks after eliminating her infection she was no longer depressed, her exhaustion was gone and her zest for life had been restored.

To make the proper diagnosis of psychiatric symptoms even more complex it is now well established that the overgrowth of candida (yeast) organisms, fungi, mycoplasma, and dangerous anerobic organiasms in the intestinal tract after antibiotic therapy, high sugar intake, and illnesses which injure the lining of the intestine can cause impaired brain function (seizures, confusion, poor memory, depression, learning difficulties, headaches and short attention span). These brain symptoms are caused by absoption of neurotoxic substances produced by mycoplasma, fungi, borrelia, yeast and anerobic organisms. These neurotoxic substances also commonly cause injury to the hypothalamus which leads to impaired production of endocrine hormones. Therefore, patients with intestinal pathogen overgrowth often manifest impaired function of the thyroid gland (hypothyroidism) and adrenal insufficiency (Addison's Disease). Another factor that may contribute to this hormonal failure is the consumption of cholesterol by mycoplasma in nervous tissue which decreases the building substance (cholesterol) needed to make estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, aldactone, and cortisone. Persons with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid gland) often do not manifest fever when they have infections which may lead the clinician away from considering an infectious problem.

The psychological treatment of chronic mental illness is often lengthy and of marginal value. Frank Strick, Clinical Research Director of the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness, has gathered a large amount of information about how commonly mental symptoms are not appreciated to be originating[1] from infectious problems.

Four types of infectious problems are capable of producing mental symptoms. These are infections well recognized for causing psychiatric problems (pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis, malaria, Legionaires Disease, syphilis, chlamydia, typhoid fever, diphtheria, HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes). Research done at Johns Hokins Children's Center and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001 disclosed that mothers with evidence of Herpes Simplex Type 2 infection during pregnancy were 6 times more likely to have a child who later developed schizophrenia than mothers without herpes infections.

Parasitic infections which invade the brain (neurocysticerccosis) manifest depression and psychosis in more than 65 % of cases. These tapeworms produce cysts, swelling, and encephalitis in brains of patients. Other parasitic infections can produce psychiatric symptoms without direct brain invasion (giardia, ascaris psychosis, trichinosis, Lyme Disease) which clear after effective therapy. Meningitis or encephalitis was found in 24 % of 1300 cases of trichinosis reported from Germany.

Acute infection with Toxoplasmosis Gondi can produce personality changes and psychosis including delusions and auditory hallucinations. T. Gondii can alter behavior, neurotransmitter function and accounts for approximately 25 % of chorioretinitis usually contracted congenitally. A large study of mentally handicapped persons revealed that the incidence of t.gondii infection in schizophrenic patients was twice that of control subjects. German research has revealed that first onset schizophrenia patients have a 42 % incidence of antibodies to toxoplasma compared to 11 % in control subjects. T. Gondi usually is spread to humans from cats. Two studies have revealed that exposure to cats in childhood was a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia.

Two of the drugs used to treat psychosis and bipolar disorder (Haldol and Valproic Acid) inhibit the growth of t. gondii in cerebrospinal fluid and blood at concentrations below that being treated with these therapies suggesting that improved mental status might actually be due to killing t. gondii not anti-psychotic effects. The antipsychotic drugs thorazine, haldol and clozapine inhibit viral replication. Patients with recent onset of schizophrenia have a 400 % increase in reverse transcripyase activity in their cerebrospinal fluid which is seen in patients with infectious retroviruses. Cerebrospinal fluid CSF from these recent onset schizophrenia patients inoculated into New World Monkey cell lines caused a ten fold increase in reverse transcriptase activity suggesting that this injected CSF contained a replicating virus. Dr. Darren Hart of Tulane Univ. Medical School found evidence of antibodies to retrovirus in the blood of half the patients he tested who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Malhotra has demonstrated that the absence of CCR5?32 homozygotes in more than 200 schizophrenic patients sharply increased the susceptibility to retroviral infection. These pieces of evidence have led Johns Hopkins virologist Robert Yolken and Psychiatry Professor Dr. E. Fuller Torrey to believe that toxoplasmosis is one of several infectious agents that cause most cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Dr. Torrey noted that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder went from rare diseases in the late 19th century to common as cat ownership became popular. Yolken designed studies that showed that mothers of children who later developed psychosis were 4.5 times more likely to have antibodies to toxoplasmosis than mothers of healthy children. Yolken also learned that patients with schizophrenia of average duration of more than 22 years who also tested positive for cytomegalovirus (21 patients) experienced significant improvement in psychiatric symptoms when treated with Valacyclovir[2] an antiviral drug for 8 weeks.

Streptococcal infections have been followed in some children by the abrupt onset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder within a few weeks.

Use of the antiviral drug Amantadine has produced greatly shortened hospitalizations and rapid remission of psychiatric symptoms in Germany when given to patients testing positive for Borna Disease Virus BDV. Smaller studies in the U.S. disclosed that up to half of Bipolar and Schizophrenic patients test positive for BDV compared to none in healthy controls.

For obvious reasons toxoplasmosis has attracted the most attention. However, many other infectious agents particularly parasitic infections can disable normal mental function by depleting the host of essential nutrients, interfering with enzyme and neuroimmune function, and releasing massive amounts of waste products, enteric poisons, and toxins which disable brain metabolism. Mature tapeworms can lay a million eggs a day and roundworms, which afflict 25 % of the worlds population, can lay 200,000 eggs daily. The brain requires 25 % of the body's oxygen, nutrients, and glucose even though it makes up only 3 % of the body's weight. Mental patients were found to have a 53.8 % incidence of parasitic infection in a 2 year study conducted by the Univ. of Ancona involving 238 inpatient residents in 4 Italian psychiatric institutions.

Cognitive dysfunction and chronic emotional stress with symptoms of apathy, exhaustion, confusion, poor appetite, memory loss, nervous stomach, social withdrawal, loss of sex drive and motivation are often attributed to depression when they were actually caused by infection.

Many parasitic infections escape diagnosis because standard stool parasite studies pick up only 10 % of active infections. At times this is caused by inconsistent shedding patterns and other cases are missed because the parasites are outside the intestine. The World Health Organization states that 2 billion people have worms but these are rarely seen in stool exams. Many restaurants are staffed by persons from foreign lands where parasites are common so exposure to parasitic infection can occur in most U.S. restaurants.

To overcome these failures the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness suggests ova and parasite microscopy, multifluid antigen and antibody detection, stool cultures, enzyme immunoassays, imaging techniques, and extensive evaluation of the patients history and clinical information to discover chronic infections. Patients diagnosed as chronic candidiasis (yeast) may actually have more significant infections which are preventing long term cure. Curing hidden infections often results in return of normal brain metabolism. Fever and antibody elevation often disappear in patients with neurotoxin injury to the immune system and thyroid hypofunction caused by hypothalamic toxicity. Rebuilding the host's immune system and restoring integrity of the intestines will help prevent relapse. Care to not provide premature nutritional supplements that are growth factors for certain microorganisms is vital. Screening tests for heavy metal toxicity, environmental chemical exposure, molds, electromagnetic stressors, abnormal glucose metabolism, brain allergies, food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, ph abnormalities, and dietary correction can improve cognitive function.

In my opinion the arguments about the failure to diagnose infections causing brain symptoms presented by Frank Strick are persuasive and sound. Most psychiatric consultations almost certainly are not concerned with exploring diagnostic considerations outside the psychiatric realm. This whole field of psychiatric diagnosis needs to be reconsidered in view of the strong evidence that toxoplasmosis, parasitic infections, borrelia burgdorfi, candida, borna disease virus, streptococcus, and other infectious agents are capable of producing impaired brain function with symptoms that will generate a psychiatric diagnosis in a conventional psychiatrist's office. There is a real possibility that many, perhaps most patients, have an infectious illness that is correctable not a permanent psychiatric impairment. This failure to discover infectious causes for psychiatric symptoms is tragic because many persons are vegetating in psychiatric facilities for the remainder of their lives, instead of recovering full health when their infection is cured. My suggestion to readers is to consider exploring a consultation with the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness before accepting a psychiatric diagnosis that is likely to lead to a lengthy and minimally effective therapy.

The Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness is the first comprehensive institute of its kind in the U.S. They provide testing, clinical and consulting services to clients all over the world and help in educating professional persons. Phone consultations are offered. by calling 800-699-2466 then press pound (#) 831-425-5555 (patient scheduling only) or by e-mailing riimi@gawab.com. The director is Frank Strick and the institute is in Santa Cruz, Ca.

Footnotes:

Strick, Frank Townsend Letter for Doctors &Patients April 2004 pg. 123-125
Yolken, Robert American Journal of Psychiatry December 2003

That's what I was talking about earlier, with secondary psychiatric disorders - some mental illnesses are caused by a physical condition.

What Strick is suggesting though, is that vastly more are being caused than are being diagnosed. This is a seductive suggestion for people diagnosed with mental illness, since mental illness carries some social stigma, it's nicer to think an infectious agent is causing your problems.

I'm a little suspicious of an "institute" that only has a pager number and an email address. You would think they would have a web site at least.

Yes my psychiatrist and therapist have been my saving grace! They had been treating me for depression for three years before I ever heard of the “M” word. Through the years they watched and documented my ER visits which ironically all were for skin symptoms and all unknowingly at the time misdiagnosed. Let me rephrase this, they were probably properly diagnosed according to the manifestation but the cause was never considered, explored, or identified. No testes were ever performed except for AIDS (neg every time).

When I finally found others that had similar symptoms, I began to realize what I was really dealing with. As anybody would, I collected all of my medical records (Derm, GP,…) to help us evaluate my speculations so I could get the proper help that I was in need for. I never knew to look for the fibers before this. I kept passing it off as lint.

Our medical records documented a time in 2002 where my child and I were broken out in sores that itched like the dickens, draining some type of clear fluid, and just kept getting worse. I honestly thought it was chicken pox and this is documented too.

This condition required one trip to a pediatric doctor and one to my GP. It became very important because here we had documentation of conflict of diagnoses by two entirely different doctors for the same condition.

The pediatrician had been made aware of my GP’s diagnosis and prescribed treatment (documented in medical record) but went in an entirely different direction and disagreed with my GP. GP prescribed Kwell, Pediatric doc prescribed keflex. So, was it a bug or an infection?

I never saw any kind of bug or ever even thought it could be one so I believed the pediatrician and started the antibiotic therapy. He was kind enough to write scripts for both of us. The kwell went strait into the garbage.

Thank God I had this on paper!!!!

I never knew about the Fiber Disease until one year ago last month. When I finally was able to put a name to what we were experiencing, that’s where the nightmare began.

I was guided by my therapist and psychiatrist to seek medical help and fully prepared to have at least one of those doctors to refer me to a shrink. Oddly, not one doctor ever did. My shrink and I often laugh together about this. I asked him why no one was calling me delusional since that was not normal from what others were experiencing. He had no answer for that one. So far I seem to be the only person infected with this that has claimed that so far. Why am I any different??????

If I did not already have this support system in place prior to learning the name of this disease I don’t think I could have made it this far! This gave me so much more confidence to be able to talk to medical doctors because little did they know, I was ready for them. Thank God I had already established a repore with these professionals and they knew me very well. I’m still waiting for that psycho referral, I dare them!!!!!!!

You seem to be fixated on the DOP theory because no matter what the subject is, that you are replying to.....you always find a way back to the DOP diagnosis.

If you have already made up your mind, that we are all imagining the horror we go through every second of every day, then WHY all the questions?

Or....are you trying to convince us all that we are DOP?

In my opinion, the DOP diagnosis (in re to morgs) was a carefully engineered plan by "the powers that be" to cover their butts. They created YET ANOTHER DISEASE, that they don't know how to cure and were not prepared to deal with all the PANIC and fear....if the truth about this disease were made public.

So, instructions were given.......label these patients DOP......so that any attempt to reveal this epidemic, would be disregarded....because we're all crazy (NOT)!

Let’s take syphilis as an example. Do you know anything about the history of this illness?

Now, none here have time or even wish to try to convince you of the legitimacy of this disease. I hope that you will stay and help us figure out some information and add your wealth of knowledge that you have shown. But please stop with the DOP already because this is clearly not my problem and I need real help.

LOL
Sabrina I am glad Your on our team!!
Every thing you just wrote is so true.
Your poor fingers must hurt from typing. I think if any of us are diagnosed with depression,
it is because frist, we are fatigued, and itchy,
and embarrased to show our selves with "erruptions"
Not to metion ruining our lives.

then OF COURSE any one would be depressed over that.
In NO way is the reverse true IMO that first came the depression.
Peace &Love to you also,
Lynne

PS:
day one of my documenting everyones synptoms and looking for commonality.
I have to go by all the posts, because only a few have
sent me the info

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these".

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these".

befour wrote:You seem to be fixated on the DOP theory because no matter what the subject is, that you are replying to.....you always find a way back to the DOP diagnosis.

I'm not fixated on DOP - it gets mentioned a lot here by people other than me. I'm not suggeting anyone has it - I don't think anyone has really mentioned anyhting that would make me think they do have it. But various people have said their doctors jump to a conclusion of DOP.

I was interested in Pimozide, if it helps with the itching. I know it's psychopharmacologial, but if itching does not respond to other treatments, then I wondered if this helps.

My concern was more with Frank Strick, and the "Rearch Institute for Infectious Mental Illness", which seems to conprise of that one article, and Mr Strick's pager and email. Strick is a "Nutritional Researcher", I'd like to check that the whole thing was not just a scam to sell supplements first.

Sabrina wrote:Let’s take syphilis as an example. Do you know anything about the history of this illness?

It does not seem different from the history of several other illnesses. I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Now, none here have time or even wish to try to convince you of the legitimacy of this disease. I hope that you will stay and help us figure out some information and add your wealth of knowledge that you have shown. But please stop with the DOP already because this is clearly not my problem and I need real help.

Okay, I won't mention DOP again (unless in response to someone who mentions it first).

I think we are getting a bit off-topic. This is about the "fiber disease". A collection of symptoms, the most unusual of which is finding fibers in lesions. If I were looking into this, then I'd look at the fibers. Some kind of statistics need to be gathered, as the current evidence is mostly anacdotal.

Linn wrote:then OF COURSE any one would be depressed over that. In NO way is the reverse true IMO that first came the depression.

Lynne, I just want to say, in case you got the wrong idea from my previous posts, that I think you are quite right. You have a physically based problem, and your depression and withdrawal are based on that.

Remember when I brought this up way back when? I would'nt rule it out people.
____________________________

Fusarium oxysporum, also referred to as Agent Green is a fungus that causes Fusarium wilt disease in more than a hundred species of plants. It does so by colonizing the water-conducting vessels (xylem) of the plant. As a result of this blockage and breakdown of xylem, symptoms appear in plants such as leaf wilting, yellowing and eventually plant death.

Interest in Fusarium oxysporum as a pesticide was first raised after the discovery in the 1960s that it was the causative agent in the destruction of the Hawaiian coca population.
The United States government was involved in a controversial program to use Fusarium oxysporum for the eradication of coca in Colombia and other Andean countries, but these plans were cancelled by president Bill Clinton who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nations have since banned its use throughout the region. Use of biological agents to kill crops is potentially illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention.